


Breaking the Rules

by spitecentral



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Autistic Characters Written By An Autistic, Autistic Hunk, Autistic Shiro, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Meltdown, Platonic VLD Month 2017, idk how to tag this honestly, kinda sorta?
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-16
Updated: 2017-10-16
Packaged: 2019-01-18 05:06:37
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,751
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12381504
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/spitecentral/pseuds/spitecentral
Summary: In which Hunk is an undiagnosed autistic having a meltdown, and Shiro is that one (diagnosed) autistic that actually knows how to explain feelings.Or: Shiro helps Hunk through a meltdown.





	Breaking the Rules

**Author's Note:**

> "But they don't show any symptoms of autism in canon!" a) Hunk sure as fuck does buddy I'll personally fight you, b) Yeah Shiro sorta doesn't but I can do whatever the fuck I please this is my fanfic I make the rules.
> 
> Honestly though, this fandom is seriously lacking in autistic headcanon fics for characters that aren't Keith. No offence to Keith, but honestly? I'm getting kind of sick of it. The others are autistic too give them a chance to shine.
> 
> The quality of this fic is.... not. Just not. It's awkward and clunky and I'm fairly sure Shiro's at least mildly OOC, but you know what? I don't care. There's not enough platonic bonding fic of these two and there's even less (read: none) content with both of them as autistic. So fuck you I'm filling a void I want to read. 
> 
> Warning for internalized ableism on Hunk's part. Being undiagnosed, he doesn't have the proper terminology for his experiences, so he confuses meltdowns with tantrums and beats himself up over it. Meltdowns aren't tantrums, of course, but Hunk doesn't know that here, hence the language. He also doesn't have the right terms to describe stimming, special interest, etc. so that's also not well described and maybe kinda ableist.
> 
> Finally, though I am autistic, it's been a while since I've actually had a meltdown (I'm more of a shutdown type). If you regularly get meltdowns and feel like this doesn't fit your experience, please tell me and I'll do my best to fix it!

All in all, Hunk thought that he was handling this rather well. Sure, he was a bit freaked out. A lot freaked out. But that was understandable. Everyone would freak out a bit (or a lot) at being flung out into space in a maybe-somewhat-magical mechanical space cat, especially if they ended up fighting in a space war as a couple of Chosen Ones.

And, alright, he’d almost chewed through his hand during the first night, biting on it anxiously without even noticing what he was doing. And, yeah, maybe he was getting a bit hyperfocused on food, more so then usual. And, yes, he had thrown up at least once a day since the initial ride to Arus.

…Yeah, okay. Maybe he wasn’t doing so well.

But there was nothing he could do to change this situation, so he did what he always did when change freaked him out: he fell back on a routine.

Routines were easy, simple to follow, and Hunk had always liked them. He used to scream and cry when they were broken, but he’d taught himself to control his temper, and now, though he still wanted to throw plates at the wall whenever something went wrong, he could stop himself. He hadn’t done something like that since he was nine.

And wasn’t that a record to break.

Falling into a routine had been easy enough - Shiro’d seemed determined to get them into one. It had Lance complaining about boredom, had Pidge grumble annoyed at the time she had to wake up, and even Keith seemed to get tired of the rigid training routine Shiro kept up for them.

Hunk could’ve done without the constant beatings by Altean robots, but he was actually kind of grateful for Shiro’s stubborn refusal to budge on this. Shiro, Allura, and Coran pulled everyone out of their beds at 6 AM strict (or whatever passed for 6 AM in space), gave them an hour for breakfast, then three hours of gladiator fighting, then a short break, then three hours of training with the lions, then lunch, then they filled in the rest of the afternoon with whatever was urgent at the time, before going to bed at 9 PM, and a lights out at 10.

It was grueling, sure, and Hunk wasn’t going to stop complaining about his old bruises and hurts anytime soon, but it was a routine. He fell into it easily and gratefully, and soon, Allura didn’t even need to drag him out of his bed. The others didn’t adapt quite as quickly as he did, but they came around, too.

After about two weeks, Hunk felt like he had settled himself into something that wasn’t quite comfortable, but passing. He hadn’t thrown up in quite some time, he was capable of expanding his thoughts beyond his comfort projects (namely, cooking), and his hand remained intact, though not unbitten. He found himself stroking his headband instead of twisting the ends, which was usually a sign that he was in a good mood.

All in all, life was good, or as good as it could get in an intergalactic war.

Which, of course, was still ongoing. And, of course, the Galra had to attack sometime.

It wasn’t a large-scale attack, nothing like Sendak’s fleet had been - these were just a couple of smaller ships basically launching a ditch-effort. It really shouldn’t have bothered him as much as it did.

And yet here he was, screaming his lungs out. It was like being a kid all over again, knowing that he was being irrational and a hassle to others, but being unable to stop screaming or lashing out at anyone and anything that came within his range, because fuck it, fuck it, he just wanted everything to _fucking stop_.

He’d heard voices that sounded like sledgehammers when he’d first started screaming, but they’d stopped now, thankfully. But the lack of voices didn’t stop his shirt’s rough collar from cutting into his skin, nor did it stop the smell of his own sweat from destroying his nose. In the back of his mind, he was dimly aware that he should be getting to his lion, but that seemed secondary to fighting the killing lights assaulting him from even beyond his eyelids.

Someone turned off the lights. Hunk noticed, but couldn’t react - there was still so much else that was killing him, so much _unusual_ too. He could smell chemicals in the air that seemed soggy and harsh and so unlike anything he’d ever smelled before, could still taste the weird food goo that had no flavor but an impossible texture, and he could feel his lion’s bond press against his brain, squeezing it with its still-foreign presence. He needed something to ground himself, right now.

He searched his mind for familiar events, but he was late for training - they all were, the Galra had stopped them from finishing breakfast. He grabbed his headband on instinct, and twisted and twisted and twisted the ends. The familiar feel of the cloth and the trusted repetition of this motion calmed him, just a bit, and just a bit, and just a bit more, until finally, he felt like he might not die if he opened his eyes.

The first thing he noticed was that he was underneath the table, which was very much not where he’d been before his tantrum. He was curled up into a ball, and wasn’t very inclined to get out of it, either. His hairband was crumpled up in his hands, and his hair fell partly in front of his eyes. The room was dark, but he could still make out Shiro’s figure in front of him.

Shiro was sitting cross-legged, seemingly very interested in drawing invisible patterns with his fingers on the floor. Hunk watched him go, wondering what in the hell was going on.

When it was clear that Shiro wasn’t gonna say anything, Hunk scraped his throat. He winced at the noise, but took a deep breath and continued anyway.

“Uhm, Shiro? No offense but uh, what are you doing here?”

Shiro looked up, gave him a quick once-over, before smiling. “You’re coming down. Good,” he said, with a sigh of relief.

“…Okay? Seriously, what are you doing here. Isn’t there a Galra attack outside?”

“It’s only four ships; the others got that handled. I’m pretty sure they’re back already, actually.”

“Back?” Hunk glanced around, as if the table might be hiding some clocks. “How late is it?”

Shiro shrugged. “No idea. Late, probably. That was quite the meltdown you had.”

It suddenly hit him that Shiro would’ve been there the whole time he had his tantrum. Great. He groaned and let his face fall into his hands. Wonderful. Really impressive, Hunk. He must have a high opinion of you now.

“Yeah, sorry about that,” he said, still buried in his hands. “Haven’t had that since I was a kid. Don’t know what set it off.”

It was quiet for a couple of seconds, and Hunk felt like the silence was going to murder him. Then, Shiro asked: “Is it okay if I touch you?”

Hunk looked up and saw Shiro looking back with a semi-concerned-somewhat-unreadable look on his face. He raised an eyebrow.

“Uhm, be more specific?”

“Your shoulder,” Shiro clarified.

Hunk wondered why he would need permission, but nodded.

Shiro lay his hand on Hunk’s shoulder, and it tingled in a kind of an unpleasant way. It felt too heavy. Hunk held still.

“Listen. It’s okay,” Shiro said, dead serious, with a kind tone. “It’s not your fault.”

“Yes it is? Look, I threw a tantrum, I shouldn’t have done that. Can we go back to normal now?”

It didn’t come out quite as casual as he’d hoped. Shiro looked skeptical.

“You know that’s not a tantrum, right?”

“Sorry?”

“A meltdown isn’t a tantrum. It’s a fight-or-flight response to outside stimuli. It’s not something you can control.”

“What?”

Shiro stared at him for a while, then just sighed. “Nevermind, I’ll explain later. Do you remember what set it off?”

“Nothing. Nothing usually does.”

Shiro raised an eyebrow. “It happened suspiciously close to the Galra attack.”

As in, Hunk had started screaming the moment the alarm sounded. He’d been pissed and angry and terrified. They should’ve been eating breakfast, not fighting a war.

“I was kind of pissed that the Galra attacked during breakfast, and I guess I overreacted,” Hunk admitted. It sounded even more stupid than it had in his head.

“Routine disturbance,” Shiro muttered. Then, louder: “You felt like they were breaking the rules, right? You were supposed to have breakfast, then training, then a snack, then training, than lunch, etcetera. The Galra screwed that up.”

Hunk blinked. And blinked. And processed that.

Huh. That… yeah. That actually made a lot of sense.

“I guess.”

“It’s a reaction to routine disturbance. You’ve been clinging to the routine we’ve had here with your life, and it was the only thing keeping you from breaking down like this earlier. Am I wrong?”

Hunk thought about that.

“No,” he admitted. “Probably not. Kind of stupid, really.”

“Not really,” Shiro said, squeezing his shoulder. “I do the same thing.”

Hunk tried his best not to let his mouth fall open, and he didn’t succeed. Thankfully, he recovered quickly, and snapped it closed.

“Really?”

“Yeah. It’s part of why I was so good at the Garrison. I do well with routines, and I don’t do well with change. I remember that one time when they changed the menu and I had to excuse myself to the bathroom so I wouldn’t freak out in the middle of the cafeteria.”

Hunk stared at him. “That must’ve sucked when the Galra got you.”

Shiro grimaced. “Can’t confirm that since I don’t remember, but that probably wasn’t great, no.”

They sat in silence for a while. Shiro was the first one to speak.

“We should get back to the others, if you’re up for it.”

He took took a deep breath. He still felt awful, but surprisingly, the talk had kind of helped. Sort of. It was at least nice to know that someone like Shiro could have similar problems that he had.

“Yeah, I’m good,” Hunk said. “Let’s crawl out from under this table.”

Shiro laughed, and hit him on the shoulder, in a friendly way. Hunk grinned.

They crawled out from under the table, turned on the light, and went back to their routine, for as long as it lasted.


End file.
